Geography

Intent

At Bosley St Mary’s we believe that geography is a crucial subject within the primary curriculum as it provides a means of exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. By delivering a creative curriculum in geography, children will not only be able to learn and discover more about their local area and their home country, but they will also learn about a wide range of other countries and geographical areas of the world. They will then be able to compare their life with others meaning that not only will the children learn about the physical and human geography, but their own spirituality will be deepened through an appreciation of learning about life in other cultures. Here at Bosley St Mary’s we believe that through teaching such a broad and exciting geography curriculum, children will ultimately develop a sense of wonder, awe and fascination about the amazing world which we inhabit. Our geography curriculum also enables children to recognise the effect peoples’ behaviour and habits have on the earth, encouraging their own growth when focussing on sustainable development for the future of mankind.

The aims of teaching geography in our school are:

• To make sense of their own surroundings through learning about their own locality, and the interaction between people and environment
• To extend their interest, knowledge and understanding of contrasting localities in Britain, Europe and the World
• To develop knowledge and understanding of the human and physical processes which shape places
• To appreciate similarity and difference in the world around them and to respect other people’s beliefs, attitudes and values
• To develop the geographical skills and vocabulary necessary to carry out effective geographical enquiry
• To formulate appropriate questions, develop research skills and evaluate material to inform opinions
• To develop interest and enjoyment of geographical experiences and build confidence and understanding
• To recognise and understand issues concerning the environment and sustainable development

Implementation

At Bosley St Mary’s we ensure that teaching is of high standard and that the curriculum taught within geography is progressive, ensuring objectives from the National Curriculum are met. Geography is taught on a 2 year rolling programme in Key Stage One and a 4 year rolling programme in Key Stage 2. A new topic is introduced at the start of every term and teachers ensure that geography are lessons are explicit and given the same status as core subjects to enable children to experience a broad and balanced curriculum.

At Bosley St Mary’s, we use a variety of teaching and learning styles in our Geography lessons. We use whole-class teaching methods and we combine these with enquiry-based research activities. We encourage children to ask as well as answer geographical questions.

Geography lessons may involve:

• Undertaking fieldwork in the local area and places further afield in the UK
• Comparing and contrasting land-forms, land uses, weather, seasons and ecosystems
• The use of secondary sources to obtain geographical information, e.g. photos, books, CD-ROM, videos
• Following directions using positional and directional language, also using these to direct others
• Expressing and evaluating views on the attractive and unattractive features of the environment, e.g. tidiness, noise, building on greenbelt land
• Naming the physical features of places, e.g. mountains, sea, beach, factory, valley
• Using developing language to talk about their work e.g. route, scale, tide, erosion, climate, temperate, continent
• Developing geographical skills of making observations and measuring, recording observations through maps, talk, and writing, taking photographs, sketches and diagrams
• Using maps, globes, atlases and interpreting photographs

How is geography taught across the school:

Foundation Stage

In the Reception class, Geography is taught as an integral part of topic work covered during the year. In the Foundation Stage Geography is about the children having the opportunities to find out and learn about the world they live in. The Geography side of the children’s work is related to the Knowledge and Understanding of the World objectives set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. (Area of development 14)

Key Stages 1 and 2

At Key Stage 1, Geography is about developing knowledge, skills and understanding relating to the children’s own environment and the people who live there and developing an awareness of the wider world through cross-curricular topics.

At Key Stage 2, Geography is about developing knowledge, skills and understanding relating to people, places and environments at different scales in the United Kingdom and overseas and an appreciation of how places relate to each other and the wider world through topics.

Impact

Our geography curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work. Children will deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught
• Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning
• Images and videos of the children’s practical learning
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice)
• Moderation staff meetings where pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work
• Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum
• Marking of written work in books